Chapter 3
In Which Harry Questions His Morality and Rolls in Some Slime

Upon surveying his new domain, Harry was very grateful to his relatives. If it weren't for them, and their incessant demands of chores, the task of making his new home livable might have seemed impossible, not to mention unpalatable. It was only through Harry's great luck that he was not only used to extreme toil, but that he was fully trained to the task at hand. If only the Dursleys had also insisted that he learn how to repair stone structures or roofs, he'd have been all set.

That gratefulness and luck lasted for all of five minutes, while he searched for cleaning supplies. This, of course, led him to consider what he might need to buy. Which in turn led to the thought of where he might buy said purchases. His surroundings might have been big on crocodiles and mud, but stores were in short supply.

He tried touching his wand to his ring again.

"Take me back to my room? Er…Leaky Cauldron. Diagon Alley. Knockturn Alley. Um…reverso. Return. Fini incantum. Hogwarts. Gringotts. Anywhere but here. Drats."

Whatever he said, the ring seemed to be a one way ticket to his estate. It wasn't sending him back. He wondered why he hadn't thought about how he would get back before. Probably because he was an impulsive thirteen year old kid with a new mystery to explore. Not to mention, nobody had ever bothered to teach him caution in his life. Of course, if anyone asked, he'd tell them that activating the portkey had been an accident.

He hoped someone would be questioning him later. He did not want to spend the rest of his life alone in a swamp. He didn't even have Hedwig.

"Aha!" he said to absolutely no one, unless the crocodiles and spiders happened to be listening. "What I need is an owl! So, I'll perform some underage magic, and an owl will come to tell me I'm expelled, and then I can catch it and send a message back!"

So he took out his wand and cast the most practical spell he knew. Red and gold lights burst from his wand in a spray of happy pops. Wizards, as it turns out, are not the most practical of people. Most spells that he had learned during the last two years were next to useless outside of the classroom.

The firecracker spell was pretty and fun, but had no use whatsoever in fending off crocodiles or death eaters, unless used as a distraction. The 'fire' was magically bound to not hurt anything it came into contact with. Harry, nonetheless, had a great deal of fun prancing about his new penthouse loft and sending firework displays all about the room and out the holes in the walls and roof.

Then he waited. And waited. And waited.

The owl bearing the notice of his fate failed to appear. In fact, no birds of any kind appeared. Any that had happened to be roosting nearby had been terrified into fleeing by the fireworks. Even the crickets had momentarily gone quiet.

"Perhaps it simply has a very far way to fly?" Harry suggested to the spiders, them being the only ones around. After all, Harry had no idea where Bogwater Estate was located. Beyond the general fact that it was a swamp, and so probably not near the north or south pole, considering the lack of ice. Nor at the equator, considering the lack of rainforest or palm trees. He was quite certain that he was therefore located somewhere on the planet Earth, on land, between those extremes. He hoped he was still in England. Surely, one had to be in England somewhere to be counted as a lord?

"Are there many swamps in England?" Harry asked the spiders. If only he had studied more of geography. Or British history. Or Politics. Honestly, the curriculum at Hogwarts did seem a bit light on what the rest of the world considered to be essential subjects. He wondered, a bit vaguely, what witches or wizards did who didn't actually want a career in the magical world. He'd have to ask Hermione later. She seemed to be an expert on everything. In fact she'd probably know a more practical spell than fireworks.

He wished Hermione was there. He wished Ron was there too. Not because Ron would have been particularly helpful in cleaning or knowledgeable in practical spells. He would have made things more fun.

Now he had no friends, no owl, not even his school trunk. All he had was an ugly ring that refused to send him back, his wand, and the very muddy clothes on his back.

"I wish they taught us cleaning spells at Hogwarts," Harry said out loud . This time, for variety, he was speaking to the crocodiles down below. He could just make them out if he leaned his head out of what was either a window or a hole. "Or how to travel magically. I know there's a way to pop about all over the place, but they don't teach first or second years how to do that. How do you lot get around? Swimming, I suppose. I never learned how to do that either. And because of you lot, I can't even leave this tower. I'm just as trapped here as I was last year. Except no friends coming to the rescue. No food through a cat flap. No Hedwig for company. Not even a crazy house elf."

But it was just as his pity was reaching its peak, at the word 'house elf' that he heard a popping sound behind him. He spun around, fearing that the tower was about to tumble down about his ears or sink into the swamp. It was neither of those things. He was no longer alone.

"AAAH!" Harry shrieked in his manly way. "It's Gollum!"

"Master!" gurgled the strange figure that so reminded Harry of a book character he had felt compelled to call it by its name. The figure was gray skinned with large dark eyes and a skeletal physique. It's voice, when it spoke, was at once dry and raspy, but also gurgly, and altogether unpleasant to listen to. "I is yous humble servant, oh master!"

"AAAH! It's Jar Jar Binks!" Harry screamed.

"This servant is being called Rosie, Master," the creature sputtered and rasped at him, somehow managing to look obsequious and indignant at the same time. Harry stared, first because he needed time to process what the creature had said into normal English, and then because he had never seen anyone who looked less like a 'Rosie' in his life.

"This servant is being so happy you is coming at long last to Bogwater Estate, Master," Rosie continued, its voice sputtering with its joy. Harry attempted to take a step backwards to avoid possibly phlegm, and promptly fell out the window.

Luckily for Harry, he was on the side of the tower that tilted in, rather than out, so instead of taking a nasty fall he found himself tumbling down the disturbingly soft green side of the tower. Which was still a nasty fall, but for completely different and less fatal reasons. The ground he was heading towards was probably going to be painful though, being hard stone even with the slime and crocodiles covering it.

Harry landed on something squishy.

"This servant is being happy to serve as your cushion, Master," the ground beneath him managed to wheeze out.

Harry let out yet another manly shriek and jumped up. His body, which felt a bit tender and bruised after being thrown about in such a manner, protested the movement. He suspected Rosie's body was protesting movement even more after having Harry land on her. It. Whatever. At any rate, Rosie stayed lying on the ground.

"Crocodiles!" was Harry's next shriek. They were surrounded on all sides. He made a mad scrambling attempt at climbing back up the tower, slid on the weird green slime coating the tower's side, and then huddled himself into a helpless ball while he waited for his doom.

The doom failed to appear.

"This servant is being happy to see the old master's crocodiles are flourishing after all this time," Rosie gurgled out. A nearby crocodile made a noise like a growl. Teeth still failed to make an appearance anywhere on Harry's body. Cautiously, he lifted his head.

"Why aren't they eating us?" he asked at last. Rosie slowly pulled itself up from the ground.

"They is yous crocodiles, Master. No Bogwater crocodiles will ever harm a Bogwater or his cherished friends."

Harry considered this. Then he looked back at the strange creature he had landed on.

"How did you end up below me, Rosie?" he asked. The creature stared at him with wide eyes.

"You is Master," Rosie answered. "It is being this servant's pleasure to serve you in all ways. I is seeing you deciding to go for a slide and I is thinking you may find the ground hard. So this servant is popping down to break Master's fall."

"Popping down? You can just…pop places? Can you take people with you?"

As though in answer, bony fingers reached out to grasp Harry's ankle. Then he felt a sensation like being jerked hard to the side, and suddenly they were both back in the tower. Then the fingers let go and Rosie flopped down, breathing in harsh wheezes.

"Awesome!" Harry said. He hoped that meant that Rosie could take him anywhere and that they weren't stuck on Bogwater Estate.

"Happy…Master…Approves," Rosie gurgled out. It sounded a bit like it was dying.

"Are you dying?" Harry asked. "How are you even still alive? Wasn't the last 'Master' a hundred years ago?"

"Good Master…worrying about servant. I is not dying. I is not living hundreds of years. Old Master is casting Maleficent Centum spell. I is sleeping under stasis charm until new master comes and is calling for me."

"I don't remember calling for a Rosie," Harry pointed out. He wondered if asking whether the creature was a boy or girl might be considered rude.

"Master was saying 'house elf' and I was coming."

"Do you have to talk like that?"

"What way is master meaning?"

"Never mind. So, you're a house elf? And you belong to me?"

"Master is correct."

Harry thought about this. Basically, from what he learned from Dobby, house elves are slaves. Slavery, he was quite certain, was wrong. In fact, it was illegal in the non-magical world. Therefore, it was wrong of Harry to keep Rosie as a slave. On the other hand, since slavery was all Rosie knew, he suspected it was equally wrong to simply hand Rosie a sock and send her…him…it on its way. This was a moral dilemma he really had no idea how to solve. In the end, he decided to solve it later and in the meantime to give Rosie as much freedom as he could, short of actually setting the house elf free.

"Call me 'Harry'," Harry said at last. "Please. And please…erm…only follow my orders if you want to. And don't punish yourself if you think you failed me. And…um…do whatever you want to do, unless it's hurting someone. And tell me if you ever want to be free of me."

Rosie stared at Harry. It didn't look offended. Nor did it look happy. Rosie looked confused.

"Yes, Master," it said at last.

"Please call me Harry."

"This servant prefers 'Master'. And Master is saying do as Rosie likes. This servant is calling Master 'Master', Master."

"Oh." Harry thought about that for a moment. "Can you do that popping thing and take me back to my room in the Leaky Cauldron? Or at least to Diagon Alley? Or even just London.?"

"Yes, Master." And then Rosie did absolutely nothing. The boy and the house elf stared at each other.

"And will you take me?" Harry asked at last. He suddenly wondered if he had made a mistake, telling the elf to do what it wanted before Harry had gotten it to take him back to London. What if it decided it didn't want the new Lord Bogwater to leave? What if it kept him prisoner? What if he never left the swamp again and lived her forever with just crocodiles, spiders, and Rosie for company?

"Yes, Master." And Rosie reached out a bony hand to grab Harry's wrist. There was a jerking sensation. Then they were no longer in the tower. Nor were they in the swamp. Nor were they in Harry's hotel room. Rosie had popped them into the middle of a woods.